fandomhighdorms | The Deck; Friday Evening

Jasper had smashed his cell phone a few days ago. It'd been worth it. After seeing his inbox flush with messages from Doug Weathers, he'd gotten sick of it and just smashed it with the heel of his shoe. No regrets. Melissa and Howie could contact him other ways. He didn't need a phone, didn't care to have a phone. He didn't want anyone to come a knocking.

The quiet was why Jasper was outside on the deck this evening. The sun was just starting to set, making it feel slightly cooler though it was still hot. Jasper was used to it though. Southern summers were famous for two things: heat and humidity. He'd grown up around them and knew them well.

Hot summer nights are my favorite, Jasper. He could hear his father lengthening the word 'favorite', making it several syllables longer than it needed to be. Makes you feel like you've worked really hard. You ever sawed through a --

Jasper cut that thought off, shoved it behind a door in his mind. He'd brought a bottle of water outside with him and was using it to keep cool. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, one arm tucked up behind his head and his eyes were closed.

It was so easy to imagine himself back home, back in his grandma's house, sitting on the porch while she railed incoherently inside. But here, it was just quiet. Jasper sighed.

He hoped his grandmother hadn't burned the house down.

[ Open ]

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"Uh huh." Billy was locked up in prison. Locked up in maximum security but Jasper couldn't stop the errant thought that he would love this acidic trip of an island. It'd delight him.

"And here I just thought you were short for a guy," Jasper admitted, shrugging. "Turns out I have that backwards. Sort of."

"Sort of," Thorin agreed dryly. "It took far too long to convince my roommate I was not 'reclaiming a word'. Whatever that may mean."

He wasn't Tumblr savvy.

"Reclaiming a word?" Jasper considered himself pretty smart but even he hadn't heard that. "I...it sounds like you're setting out to conquer something and take a word as a prize."

See, that sounded more Thorin's style.

"I would not be opposed to that."

Jasper sat back. "You're some conquering warrior?" Between the heavy clothing and that comment, it'd been pretty easy to piece that together.

"There isn't much to conquer," Thorin replied. "But is in our blood to fight."

Also gold-madness, but pssh.

"Must make it boring to not have anything to conquer," Jasper commented. It was so easy to fall into this pattern of gleaning information from people and not giving anything.

Billy would say he was doing that to use it against them later. Jasper refused to entertain that idea.

"Civil war ever a problem?"

"Not particularly." Not since the last great war with the Enemy. "The only threat to my people would be orcs or goblins. There numbers are large, but are largely unskilled."

"Orcs and goblins," he repeated, brow furrowing. "Do you live in every small child's nightmares or something?"

"No?" Probably. If you were scared of riddles and dudes weeping a lot.

Get your shit together, Tolkien.

"Sounds like you're not sure of that," Jasper said, slightly amused. "Sure you're not the boogeyman?"

Boogeyman dwarf?

"I believe you would fit that better than me." BEING A MAN AND ALL.

And other reasons Thorin didn't know.

"Oh yeah?" Jasper crossed his arms. "Why's that? What about me screams boogeyman?"

Oh, if only Thorin knew.

"For one, you are a man." CHECK AND MATE. "And I would assume this is some strange story from your people, which I could not be part of."

"You're not a male?" Jasper asked, unable to help himself. "You look pretty male to me. Am I wrong?"

Thorin rolled his eyes. "It is very vain to use your race to name a gender, don't you think?"

And this was why Thorin wasn't allowed on Tumblr. It would end in tears.

"I didn't make the rules," he answered with a shrug. "Besides, I don't think my race is man. It's more like...human. Homo sapien. Big difference."

"Human?" Thorin wasn't into that. It didn't have ye olde sound to it. No ballads would be written about that shit there. "Strange."

"And dwarf isn't?" It was, Thorin.

Rude!

"No more than an elf. Or a halfling."

They were called hobbits, Thorin. Don't be a dick about that.

"Elves? Halflings?" Jasper shook his head. "Okay, you're not from children's nightmares because you're from their medieval fantasy board games."

"You've figured me out," Thorin replied dryly. "I'm an from a storybook."

Oh, Thorin. Thorin, no.

"Thing is," Jasper said, crossing his feet, "that that isn't so far fetched. People here are from all kinds of strange places."

Space, storybooks, seas, other universes, all that. Jasper was from the south. His claim to fame was darker and a little more violent. Not worth thinking about.

"If I were from a storybook, I don't believe that I would be stuck here."

Also, he'd marry a princess or something.

"Stuck?" That caught his attention above anything else for the moment. "You're actually trapped here?"

He had it bad but not that bad.

"All attempts to return home have brought me back here," he said with a sigh. "I can only hope my family has not given up home of my return."

"Huh." He found himself wondering what could possibly make that even happen. This place was strange but he couldn't really figure out why it would be a trap for certain people. "Tried going anywhere else? Off this island, I mean."

"I've been to the city of Baltimore." Which was not the sort of city he was used to.

"Huh." Jasper rubbed his chin. "So, it's just your home that's blocked off. Strange that a freaking piece of land could be selective about where people go. Crazy."

The Deck; Friday Evening

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